Earth Day

Even if there had never been a Richard Nixon, an Earth Day would have happened sooner or later. Alongside Einstein's famous equation, we have Bob Nelson's Environmentalism = Calvinism minus God. Religions must have holidays and the Greens have theirs. These days, it's the one that the high-minded take the most seriously. It's when they strike their most somber pose. (Does this make them Maggie Thatcher "wets"?)

Of course, it is also a time to celebrate the fact that we have the writings of Julian Simon, Indur Goklany, Fred Singer, Bjorn Lomborg, Ronald Bailey, Terry Anderson and many others.

Deepak Lal cites their work and asks (p. 220):

So why do the Greens persist in their crusade? The
reason is that, like any religion, their beliefs are not based on reason but on
faith. For those who do not profess the same faith, the time has
surely come to take on the new cultural imperialists. The first point
of resistance is to recognize what they are seeking to do. Bluntly, they
would like to perpetuate the ancient poverty of the great Eurasian
civilizations -- India and China -- with, as they see it, their burgeoning
unwashed masses increasingly emittting noxious pollutants as they seek to make
their people prosperous, and achieve economic parity with the West.